Stem-Cell Suit's Chilling Effect on Labs Already a Win for Foes

By Jeffrey Young -
Sep 22, 2010

Sean Morrison earned a presidential
award in 2003 from George W. Bush for his research on the
underlying causes of Hirschsprung’s disease, a life-threatening
intestinal illness in newborns. His quest for a treatment is now
jeopardized by a judge’s ruling.

An Aug. 23 order by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth that
halted federal funding for research using stem cells taken from
embryos has Morrison, a 42-year-old University of Michigan
scientist, concerned he won’t be able to support his lab’s
discovery efforts. At Harvard University, researcher George Daley said newly minted scientists have told him they may
abandon plans to train with him because of the judge’s order.

While a U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington has allowed
continued funding as the case is heard, the outcome’s
uncertainty “completely pulls the rug out from under”
scientists seeking to organize new research and hire workers,
Morrison said. Foes may have won regardless of the court
decision, said Thomas Murray, a bioethicist.

“It’s a tactical victory,” said Murray, president of the
Hastings Center, a bioethics research center in Garrison, New
York, in a telephone interview. “If their goal was to make
human embryonic stem-cell research a less attractive option for
American researchers, they’ve succeeded, even if they lose their
court case.”

Lamberth ruled last month that the 1996 Dickey-Wicker
amendment prohibits using U.S. taxpayer money to study the stem
cells because human embryos are destroyed by extracting the
cells. The amendment has been added to appropriations bills for
the Department of Health and Human Services each year since it
was first enacted. The appeals court said Sept. 9 that the
government can fund research while the injunction is appealed.

Expanded Funding

President Barack Obama in March 2009 allowed expanded
funding for embryonic stem cells, overturning restrictions that
were placed on the research since 2001 by former President Bush.
Obama’s ruling allowed the U.S. National Institutes of Health to
spend $131 million on 199 embryonic stem-cell projects during
fiscal 2010, which ends Sept. 30, according to an Aug. 31
government court submission to Lamberth.

Embryonic stem cells can grow into any kind of body tissue
and have the potential to repair or replace cells damaged by
illness or injury, and may lead to therapies for Parkinson’s
disease, spinal-cord injuries and other conditions.

Newborn Defect

Morrison has been studying Hirschsprung’s disease, a
genetic disorder that strikes one in 5,000 newborns, for more
than eight years. His lab is testing intestinal nervous system
cells, made from human embryonic stem cells, in rodents as a
prelude to their possible testing in patients. The federal grant
supporting the work ends in July. Without additional federal
funding, he may abandon the research, he said.

“Everybody is sitting in their labs thinking, ‘How much
more of this do I really want to deal with?’ I know I’m thinking
that,” said Morrison, director of the Center for Stem Cell
Biology at the university in Ann Arbor.

The NIH gave Morrison $744,000 over the last two years to
pursue embryonic stem-cell research involving Hirschsprung’s.
Morrison said he may have to cancel his plan to apply for a
five-year, $1.86 million grant to continue the next step of the
work, which may lead to tests in people, given the uncertainty.

Daley, founding member of the executive committee at the
Harvard Stem Cell Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said in
testimony at a Sept. 16 congressional subcommittee that he is
trying to come up with private funding for embryonic stem cell
research so he doesn’t have to dismiss anybody.

Stopping Progress

If funding ends for Daley’s main project, exploring whether
alternative stem cells are as versatile as embryonic cells, that
would “stop cold major new research collaborations that have
already proven remarkably productive,” Daley testified.

State and private funding is available to fill the gap
should U.S. funding end, though not on the same scale, said
Arnold Kriegstein, director of the University of California at
San Francisco’s Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration
Medicine and Stem Cell Research.

“That’s fine for the short term but we’re here for the
long haul and we need some security for long-range projects,”
Kriegstein said in a telephone interview. Only the federal
government can fulfill that role, he said.

“How can somebody plan a successful career when faced with
that kind of uncertainty?” he asked.

‘Crazy’ to Start

Timothy Kamp, director of the University of Wisconsin Stem
Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center in Madison, said any
researcher using human embryonic stem cells now is questioning
whether they should continue.

“You’d be crazy” to begin any new research on the cells,
given the timing of the legal case, said Kamp, who is also the
co-founder of a closely held company, Cellular Dynamics
International of Madison, Wisconsin, that uses stem cells to
make heart tissue, in a telephone interview.

Morrison and Daley testified before the Senate subcommittee
that approves the National Institutes of Health’s budget.
Democratic Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, who chairs the panel, is
the lead sponsor of legislation to extend the institutes’
support for embryonic stem-cell research.

Earlier versions of Harkin’s bill to guarantee funding
passed Congress in 2006 and 2007, only to be vetoed by Bush.
Harkin said he would work to pass a new bill to provide money
for the research if the court rules against it.

Sarah Binder, a political science professor at George
Washington University in Washington, said passing a bill is a
long shot with so short a time before the November congressional
elections, or in a session after the elections.

Republicans who backed Harkin’s previous bill for funding
have incentives to block congressional action now even if they
agree with him, she said. The Republican Party has become more
politically conservative since 2006, and party leaders may want
to deprive Obama of a political victory on stem cells, Binder
said. Democrats may also be drawn into the fray.

“I don’t get the sense that there’s an appetite for making
room for things that are in any way controversial,” Binder said
in a telephone interview.